Schaumleffel caught texting Tri-Valley student

Board member is banned from campus, refuses to resign

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Tri-Valley Local Schools board member Eddie Brock speaks to board member Jason Schaumleffel during a board meeting. Board members have repeatedly asked Jason Schaumleffel to resign.(Photo: Times Recorder file photo)Buy Photo

DRESDEN - During its meeting Thursday night, the Tri-Valley School Board released Snapchat messages between board member Jason Schaumleffel and an 18-year-old Tri-Valley High School student.

In the conversations between Schaumleffel and the student, he encouraged her to spend the night with him, skip school and send him pictures. On another social media platform, he told her that he texts "like 12 people in the high school who I know".

Despite voting in favor of a request that he resign from the board, Schaumleffel refused to resign. He refused to answer any questions from his fellow board members, Tri-Valley Superintendent Mark Neal and individuals who attended the meeting, and he left directly after the meeting adjourned.

The board passed a resolution banning Schaumleffel from Tri-Valley's campus, school events and having any contact with students while an investigation takes place. He is allowed to attend board meetings.

But there is nothing the board can do to remove him from his seat because he's an elected official. All board members can do, said Scott Welker, vice president of the board, is release information and ask him to resign.

"It's scary," Welker said. "It's scary to have a person in authority take advantage of a high school student."

During the meeting Thursday, the board met in executive session and when it returned, Neal dropped a large stack of papers on a table and explained that those were records of messages sent between Schaumleffel and a high school student and copies were available for anyone who wanted them.

Board members then repeatedly asked Schaumleffel to explain his behavior, why he thought these kinds of actions were appropriate and why he won't resign.

"We've been asking, religiously, for you to step down," board member Eddie Brock said. "This is unacceptable at any level."

Brock told Schaumleffel that if he needed to seek help, then the board would support him. Welker said he echoed everything Brock said.

"You asked her for pictures, what kind of pictures were you asking for?" Brock said.

Schaumleffel didn't answer.

"You don't know?" Brock said.

Brock then referenced a page in the conversation between Schaumleffel and the student where he asked her to skip school, and she declined, after which he claimed he was only kidding.

"But if she said yes, would you have said 'just kidding'?" Brock said.

Board member Martha Prince called Schaumleffel "like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and referenced a moment earlier in the meeting when Schaumleffel dedicated some of his own money to start a scholarship for Tri-Valley students.

"It's sad, Jason," Prince said. "It's painful for all of us."

Neal explained to those who attended the meeting that officials knew the screen name attached to the conversations, thepancakekid95, belonged to Schaumleffel because that same account had posted photos of himself and school board members. In the conversations with the student, that user also spoke about an incident at Muskingum University for which Schaumleffel was under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct.

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Tri-Valley Local Schools board member Scott Welker speaks during Thursday's meeting. He was reading a resolution banning board member Jason Schaumleffel from board-owned property without written permission from the board.(Photo: Chris Crook/Times Recorder)

Luke Davis, a Tri-Valley parent and an organizer of a petition to remove Schaumleffel from office, said he was flabbergasted at the conversations between Schaumleffel and the student and at Schaumleffel's silence.

"I don't understand why he feels like he doesn't have to answer to the public that elected him," Davis said.

A petition to remove Schaumleffel can be submitted to the Muskingum County Board of Elections to certify the signatures, Davis said, and then the complaint can be submitted to the local common pleas court, according to the Ohio Revised Code.

Davis needs 610 signatures and is a little more than halfway there.

Jenny Cox, school board president, said the situation was not personal and the board was simply trying to do right by its students.

"This is in the best interest of our district," she said.

Schaumleffel has served on the board since January 2016 and his term expires on Dec. 31, 2019.

At that time, Neal sent two information requests to Muskingum University asking for any records pertaining to Schaumleffel's "arrest, expulsion/removal, investigation, or charges for sexual assault."

A reply to the requests from Janet Heeter Bass, then the university's vice president of student affairs, stated that the records requested by Tri-Valley are not public records and would not be released.

In May 2017, Schaumleffel filed a lawsuit against Tri-Valley Superintendent Mark Neal, Muskingum University and two women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. That lawsuit is still pending in federal court.

During the meeting Thursday, Brock pointed out that Schaumleffel could have signed a waiver allowing the university to release information related to what happened, but he didn't.

He also lied to the board, Brock said, and told board members there was only one incident at the university when there were two and that he hadn't been drinking when he was, according to information he filed in his lawsuit.

"Why should you not resign?" Brock said. "How is any of this justifiable?"

At the end of the meeting, the board, including Schaumleffel, voted to request Schaumleffel to resign. Schaumleffel voted yes, but then declined to resign and quickly left when the meeting was adjourned.

Davis followed him out of the boardroom, shouting, "You have a God-ordained, civic responsibility to answer our questions, Jason!"